


The Wailing Wraith

by orphan_account



Category: Sanditon (TV 2019)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Halloween, Wailing wraith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27317662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Just a little something inspired by a local ghost story. Happy Halloween and stay safe and healthy everybody!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	The Wailing Wraith

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by "Winselmutter", weeping mum, a horror story from around where I live. The Winselmutter is a figure of legend not so different form a banshee.
> 
> If you speak German by chance, have a look here:
> 
> https://www.halloween.de/geschichte-hintergrund/monster-der-welt/monster-der-welt-teil-2-die-winselmutter--24981

It was a cold autumn night and Samhain was just around the corner. Outside the wind played catch with heavy rain. There were no stars and the moon twinkled scarcely through the thick carpet of clouds in the sky. As Charlotte closed the window, she heard the wind howling and the sea scratching at the cliffs. But there was another noise. A rattle. Scraping maybe?  
Charlotte tried to find sleep. She turned left and right and back again. The last members of the household went up the staircase and Trafalgar House fell silent beside the uncanny rattle. Charlotte had thought she was exhausted after a long day of chasing the children through the house. As the weather had been so changeable, the family had stayed indoors and the children became restless by midday. Jenny had by accident wrecked an old vase and Henry had shattered a window with a stone he had thrown in attempt to play cricket somewhere inside the house. Charlotte had not witnessed both tragedies, but their parents' faces spoke volumes. Mary and Tom had for once no desire to play with their little rascals. 

Charlotte was not easily fooled by the wind, she grew up on a farm after all. But she just could not sleep with that annoying sound ringing in her ears. So, she finally tossed the sheets in a corner, fetched a lantern shaped oil lamp and lit it. She sneaked out of the room to wake nobody else.  
She was determined to unravel the little troublemaker and climbed the stairs as swiftly as a cat. It was a mouse or rat most likely and Charlotte’s hunting instincts were on. She grabbed her dressing gown but left her shoes. No need, she would be back in no time.  
Charlotte thought of the horror story she used to tell her siblings long after dark. All her brothers and sisters had gathered in the girls' bedchamber to listen to her nightmare worthy tale. Alison’s favourite was the one about the Wailing Wraith.  
According to legend, this old woman had died of a broken heart after her son was lost in a copper mine. His fellow miners had abandoned him as water flooded the tunnel. He drowned alone in the cold and dark heart of the mountain. There was no tombstone, no grave. His mother grew sick with grief and wrath until she disappeared. Some said she had joined her son in the freezing embrace of the gloomy waters. Others had even grimmer tales to tell.  
Now, so it was said, she dwelled in the mines as a wraith and came back every now and then to haunt the villagers in dark autumn and winter nights. Then, she would take revenge for her son’s abandonment. Some told he followed her with heavy boots from which still leaked the water. He left a trail of wet tracks on the floor in every house he visited.  
Charlotte remembered how she had found Alison one morning in her father’s boots, the soles damp. Her sister had made false trails in front of her brothers’ bedchamber, just to scare the poor boys. She chuckled at the memory. But ghost stories were never true. 

She arrived at the hatch that led to the attic. There was no light beside her tiny lamp. As she held the little lantern with one hand, she had just one to open the heavy wooden flap. She tried once. Twice. The hatch did not move an inch. Her nostrils flared in frustration, but the rattle went on. The wind hissed an unsettling tune above her. Maybe the roof was not as tight as it should be, and the air cried its sober song in little cracks and crannies.  
Charlotte finally turned her back to the hatch and tried to shove it open with the joined strength of her legs and spine. She clenched her jaw and felt every muscle in her body. But at last the hinges creaked and the hatch moved. When Charlotte had risen to her full size, the flap fell on the attic floor. The noise was much louder now. It was even more uncanny than back in her warm bed, wrapped in the covers.  
But she had no time to take a look around. A gust of wind nearly broke her balance and extinguished her flame. From one moment to the other her surroundings turned pitch black.  
Charlotte breathed in and out to steady herself. She entered the attic and the old boards underneath her complained about the extra weight with heavy sighs. But Charlotte had no ear for their sorrows. Instead she froze.  
She was not alone. And it was neither a mouse, nor a rat. There was something else. Someone else. An eerie feeling crept up her spine and down her legs into her naked feet. Charlotte heard no breathing, but a shatter. She had let go of her lamp. The metal had reached the wooden floor, but Charlotte just stared into black nothingness. Something was moving right in front of her. She could sense the cool air flow against her skin.  
Charlotte’s heartbeat quickened. She held her breath and wished she had not recalled the ghost story before climbing the staircase. As her eyes started to adapt to the dark, she could see that it was something grey, maybe even something white that was fluttering in the room. She could not help herself and quivered like a frightened child. Her mouth dry and her body still standing riveted to the spot, she needed all her vigour to keep that jitter down that was about to take over.  
The rattle still continued and was all the more nerve wrecking. Charlotte's wits had not abandoned her though. She knew, it was not the Wailing Wraith. “Who are you?”, she asked into the dark, her voice trembling. Nobody gave an answer. Had it been a soul living underneath this very roof, they would have carried a candle or a lamp. But there was none. The only rational conclusion was that Charlotte had caught a thief within the act. Now she hoped the intruder would just climb back where they had come from.  
She stumbled backward to the hatch. Outside the shutters of a window clattered. Her hands reached for the flap she could not see in the dark. But she had to get out!  
Before she could open the hatch, Charlotte heard hasty steps on the staircase. It was the sound of boots. The flap in front of her opened, however, no light fell through it. Instead the boots stepped into the attic and they carried a tall figure hooded in black. Charlotte wondered in horror if their soles were damp. She cowered on the floor. Her breathing gave her position away. She could not suppress it any longer. For a moment nothing happened, and Charlotte wanted to turn into wood, just another board of the floor. 

It was the phantom in boots that broke the silence first. “Who is there?” The voice was not otherworldly, it was familiar. It was HIS voice. Though he sounded tired, she could not find a hint that he was scared. Charlotte's whole world turned upside-down. She found her spirits and rose from the floor in an instant. “It’s me. Charlotte. But there’s someone by the window!”, she uttered into the dark.  
She stretched out her hands to find safety in his arms. “There’s nobody else, it’s just us”, Sidney said and lit a candle. And right as she reached the warmth of his embrace, she turned around and could look at her supposed Wailing Wraith. It was a broken window. The wind blew through a shattered pane. Henry’s work of destruction, Charlotte assumed. Tom had improvised a cover for the hole with a plain white curtain which fluttered in the breeze. 

Charlotte felt embarrassed. She was still holding on to Sidney’s arm. As her inside calmed by his touch, she waited for the smug remark on her unnecessary shivers. But Sidney kept his mouth shut and just held her for a while. Then he tightened the embrace from behind. “See, nobody’s there…”, his voice warm, dark, and soothing - none of the usual mischief to be found. She thanked him by reaching for his hands and they returned down the stairs together.  
Before she fell asleep, Charlotte decided to tell the children a ghost story on Samhain. And the morning after she would take Sidney’s boots to leave a damp trace from their room back to the front door. She smiled and did not even hear the rattle anymore as she dreamt of arms, embraces, mutual silence and maybe something more.


End file.
